In the olden days down in the coastal rivers and swamps of North Carolina (God, I love that place) we used to use a fish stringer and ivory soap. The stringer was made of chain and the hooks were unclipped into the open position with small chunks of ivory soap as floating bait. The stringer was secured at both ends across the mouth of a stream or some other likely place.
Being the little brother it was my job to climb out of the boat and hammer stakes into the mud to secure the stringer. Sometimes, with enough fish pulling on the line, the stringer would never again be found. We'd let the stringer soak while we went off in search of crawdads.
sniff, now I'm pining for those Carolina pines.